MED/HEALTH/CRYO: Ischemic strokes treated with substance from vampre bat saliva

From: Michael M. Butler (mmb@spies.com)
Date: Thu Jan 09 2003 - 17:27:10 MST


Feel free to repost to cryonics lists.

http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20030109-014250-1661r

Executive summary: More effective, less (no?) toxic effect on cells when compared
to rt-PA, the only FDA-approved drug for ischemic stroke.

Of course, this is probably exactly the *wrong* treatment for hemorrhagic stroke.
So don't go fixing up any bat squeezings for your home remedy kit unless you can
reliably tell wch kind of strok someone is haing. [sic]

Slightly edited excerpt:

<<

Desmodus rotundus salivary plasminogen activator, or DSPA or desmoteplase
can be administered to stroke patients three times longer than current drugs
used to treat the condition.

Researchers led by Robert Medcalf, senior research fellow at Monash University
Department of Medicine at Box Hill Hospital in Victoria, compared the effects
of DSPA to the only drug approved by the Food and Drug Administration for
ischemic stroke -- called recombinant tissue plasmingen activator or
rt-PA.

They found DSPA proved more effective in zeroing in on fibrin, a sort of
structural scaffolding for blood clots. When exposed to fibrin, the clot-busting
abilities of DSPA jumped 13,000-fold compared to only 72-fold from rt-PA.

>>



This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Wed Jan 15 2003 - 17:35:51 MST